Black Workers Say Nashville Discriminates

NASHVILLE (CN) – In a federal class action, 18 black employees say the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County and Nashville Electric Services subjected them to systematic racial harassment, including “a hangman’s noose around the neck of a dark-skinned training dummy … during the controversy surrounding the ‘Jena Six’ case regarding hangman’s nooses being used to intimidate African-American school children in Louisiana.”

The plaintiffs say they were subjected to a welter of other threats and harassment. Two say a foreman told them, “During Black History Month where I come from, we hang people!” One says her car was vandalized after he complained of the hangman’s noose. Several complain of repeated, vile racial slurs, retaliation, refusal to promote black employees, and other problems.They demand lost wages, punitive damages and an injunction. They are represented by Jonathan Richardson with Smith & Hirsch of Nashville and Byron Perkins with The Cochran Firm of Birmingham, Ala.